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[thewordsworthinme]

"Lines written at four in the morning"

why am i getting into arguments about poetics at four in the morning i should be in bed listening to the sound of the night beating in the sky or better still crumpled on a pavement and drunk off my horse like all those sportsmen returning from their final year blowout missing their teeth, ties and sanity instead i am stuck in the social sciences lobby wishing i could speak to the Norse gods who listen for poems grown from the soil

[thewordsworthinme]

"Border Country"

Unhinged, the thought of you refused to emigrate

from my mind, but stayed lodged like some illegal

seeking asylum. They say a bed has no border patrol,

but it too requires invisible documents that state

who can and cannot be admitted. My case

would be far from what customs could dictate;

my only proof some unwarranted, godforsaken desire

unlikely to match the conditions of travel, time and place.

How do you not see what I see: a man of blood, fire

and water, whose tale is too honest to narrate?

Tell me, how many borders have we more

between us, until we muster that courage to cross

the barrier between speech and silence, love and loss,

earth and air, where no body had dared venture before?

[thewordsworthinme]

Mindy Nettifee, “This is the Nonsense of Love”

[thewordsworthinme]

"What Would My Father Say?"

One evening shopping for groceries in Chinatown, London, that artificial habitat the people made for themselves late last century when my mother was barely a child, the cashier - perhaps a middle-aged woman raised over there, perhaps not - asks the other woman who raised me something I can’t quite understand. My mother shakes her head and we make our way out the door, bags full of chocolates and choi sum. ‘What did she say?’ ‘She wanted to know whether you were half-caste.’ I smile and try not to be too offended. ‘Half-caste’ though politically incorrect in modern English is obviously a loose translation of what is acceptable in the other tongue. But the implication that my father - my mother’s sometime ex-husband, sometime counsellor when she thinks I’m spending far too much time addicted to Facebook - is something other than what he is, what he was, sits uneasily in my heart. I don’t know why this should be so. After all, what does it matter now? I say to myself. What my parents did together some twenty years ago - maybe while honeymooning in Hawaii, maybe in Hong Kong, maybe even in another place I haven’t heard of - truthfully isn’t of any consequence now. I can’t reverse it all. But would I have the met the same fate if my father were English, French or Irish? Which country would colour my passport; which languages would I be entitled to speak? Do I even want him to be different and have to surrender all that I have owned    until now? Tell me, what would my father say if I told him all of this? How could I explain this to a man who doesn’t yet know I’m attracted to other men, who wanders in and out of the doors of my memories, whose name means a distant country, who is an echo without a voice, a shadow without a being, an answer without a question?

[thewordsworthinme]

"Anticipated or Half-Remembered?"

for Daniel F. And after that moment, the room was timeless and we lay in each other’s arms for a while there swimming in our dreams. We were flawless then, even immortal, you and I. We learned to care less and less about the parents. This was enough. At that time, each gesture had a charge of the erotic about it: no silly games of reject, rebuff and redeploy, to trap us, pained and neurotic. But right now you’re in the wrong country and too many things separate us: oceans, mountains, other men. I can’t put it any more bluntly than that. Someone else must sip from the fountain of desire. Anyway, Canada will always be you. And the bed that belonged to both of us will stay only in my head.

[thewordsworthinme]

"Half a Life"

Waking from a dream as though he were the dream. Making him your New Year’s Resolution. Counting down the days until the anniversary and wondering which aftershave to surprise him with. Caressing his pale body in the shower. Receiving red packets emblazoned with the traditional characters, when your parents arrive for the Spring Festival. Worrying about his cousin when he leaves for Afghanistan. Teaching him the card games your classmates taught you when you were twelve or thirteen. Blowing candles with him when it’s your birthday. Jogging past the spot where you proposed. Feeling flattered when pictures of you and him get more than fifty likes on Facebook. Arguing in the kitchen and crying in the corner afterwards. Forgiving him for any secrets he kept from you. Wasting a June afternoon at the beach chasing waves. Taking him to the cinema to see the film that’s been trailed for the past two months, the one he can’t stop talking about. Laughing at the on-ride photo when you get off a roller coaster and he really wants to throw up. Going on holiday to New York and pausing mid-sentence on Brooklyn Bridge, marvelling at his eyes. Massaging him after a shitty day at work. Running into his arms at Arrivals after a ten-hour flight. Ordering the standard stuff from the local Chinese because it’s what you and him couldn’t do without.   Sending him skydiving for Christmas Day. Being at his mother’s side when she needs it most. Remembering a time when this was all you wanted and you believed it could only happen to other men. Driving into London for New Year’s and kissing at midnight in Green Park, then holding hands for ‘Auld Lang Syne’ the way you did when you finally heard: ‘You may now kiss.’ Gazing up at the ceiling as you settle down to sleep, satisfied at what you have created. Like the sky itself, life seems limitless.

[thewordsworthinme]

"Meeting Frank O'Hara in New York City"

couldn’t happen by choice or circumstance, given that your coast is seven hours away and your poems fifty years away from mine. Your era was all Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda and Marlon Brando: the kind of guys that graced the screens in Yuen Long, where my Granddad would go on a semi-regular basis, there on that far-flung side of the planet you never fully knew. Yours was Gatsby’s city - and you were as Old World as that Long Island demi-god himself, albeit somewhat more authentic. Yes, it was foreign to you, but it was home at the same time: I'm told you counted Rimbaud, Mayakovsky and Rachmaninoff among your indulgences, just as I have Shakespeare and Donne and you. I wonder if you fell in love with him the same way you fell for those other distant places; wonder how you met, laughed and created the same country in the same bed. Part of me wants that - but part of me thinks it impossible. Too many men have slipped before my eyes. But most of all it seems strange that you never made that permanent move across the ocean, to cities whose weather you appreciated, whose people shimmered with the energy you sought. That was what my ancestors did: it wasn’t easy at first, but they adapted on arrival. And maybe if I did make it to Manhattan, I would sip coffee or a Coke with you in a glass-walled café on Fifth Avenue, admire the trucks and taxis bustling by. I’d bring June too partly because she loves ‘Sleeping on a Wing’, partly because   she tells me her town is the only one with a direct ferry to Fire Island, where you carved out a life for yourself far from countries whose novelty never seemed to fade. Indeed, when Piaf says Je ne regrette rien, I have to ask - do you regret anything, you who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Aimé Césaire, on whose shoulders I now stand, whose language is still being translated in time, who measured out his life in poems?

[thewordsworthinme]

"Same Sex"

I could go on all evening. But the fact of the matter remains: I could never bed a woman the same way I could a man. Yours would be the same wry patter I recognised from my twenties, perhaps, as we grow into our middle age. When you packed and went away once, no note behind, the bed didn’t feel the same. No. In truth they can’t stop us sharing the same dreams in the same city, the same world. Somehow my mind seems to want your spine pressed against my chest in the same heat of time, that same place, that same house, under the same beating weather. Let us find the same destiny, travel to the same rest. Let us speak the same message in the same voice, saying: You do not need to be different to be my lover.

[thewordsworthinme]

"Twenty Questions"

Why did lives have to end before they were supposed to? When do the parents stop thinking if a son or daughter is coming home? Can they bear to hear ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ on the radio? Will they hold everyone tighter tonight? Has December lost its innocence forever? What happens now to the crayons uncollected and the toys untouched - will they be donated or recycled? Will the bedrooms emptied of meaning be permanently cleared? Is there a logic to tragedy? Who can fill the voids in families that only photographs can complete? Who will be there to reassure the ones still left that it is really all over and everything will be fine tomorrow, that there are no monsters in the closet anymore? When are they going back to school? Are they yet too young to learn about the worst in human beings? When will the town awake from its tabloid sleepwalk? What will happen to the house prices? Are the neighbours moving away for good? Will the flowers be left as permanent reminder? How can you interview for a replacement smile the way you can a replacement teacher? Can children erase gunshots from their minds like doodles in their exercise books, as though it were all a mistake that could somehow be corrected? Can poetry do justice to injustice? Why did the world shrink away on Friday from so much death, so late, so early?

[thewordsworthinme]

—Raymond Carver, Poetry, December 1985 At Emily Books, author Paula Bomer (PB) is interviewed by Emily Gould (EG). They talk Raymond Carver, Sylvia Plath, and female writers:

EG: I think there’s a lot of phony concern, when women’s writing touches their experiences in a real way.  People say “Who is she harming?” And then they pretend to be concerned about that person. But it’s just a way of judging, silencing women.

PB: Raymond Carver is worshipped by young male writers, but he was a terrible father and a terrible, terrible husband. He nearly killed his wife with a broken wine bottle! She almost bled to death!  But no one cared.  They just talked about what a fantastic brilliant writer he was. And he was a fantastic brilliant writer. But take, for example,  Sylvia Plath … people don’t separate her life from her work as much.

[thewordsworthinme]

"English"

You always had an affinity For words. Back then, when you were still In single digits, you deciphered every shop sign You encountered, before strolling in, Usually to gobble your next gingerbread biscuit – If they didn’t have any, they’d simply run away. And you knew the alphabet before You were supposed to. I guess you abandoned Chinese Quite quickly, once you were packed off to school, And English grew stickier and stickier On your tongue. Fatherless, You were put in Granddad’s care in the holidays, Mum stranded bingo-calling order numbers At the family takeaway, and the two of you would sit Under the sky at Heathrow, you following the jets Soaring into the stars like steel balloons, away from your grip, Him reading strange newspapers In strange languages. Occasionally A policeman would stop by, evidently Mistaking you for a terrorist, And you’d tell him, “We’re watching the planes Taking off.” He’d smile, and let you go. Cut to Chinatown and Char-siu tong-hor, A lake of pork and noodles steaming fresh from the kitchen At “Golden Dragon.” The proprietor knew you quite well, I expect, ruffling your hair like that. A trip on the Underground, Granddad still filming you repeating the English station names And the ubiquitous slogan “Mind the gap.” It was always the Piccadilly Line. Five o’clock commuters never concerned you. Pity we don’t seem to have the home movies Anymore. So off we go, Down to Green Park and Knightsbridge (Where Mr. Bean killed the Christmas lights At Harrods), up back through Piccadilly Circus, And into the cool rush of the evening breeze In Leicester Square, and McDonald’s for dinner. And Granddad always had time for you, Never mind the petrol. Like when you went to Beijing When you were five or six, where Your English was much of an asset To the officer and the sidecar of his You wanted to ride In endless circuits round Tiananmen Square, The sun still travelling unsatisfied Across the sky. I see you again occasionally, Buried among old photo albums Next to Mum with her eighties hair And her class of sixth-form comprehensives: You with your inky-black shades at the wheel Of that dinky little Jeep, camouflaged in serenity, The one all your neighbours were desperate to drive, Or perched atop that sunlit white BMW, Your face in freeze-frame, staring out to sea, Squinting for any sign of the Loch Ness Monster, The creature from the depths of mythology Probably just a buoy bobbing Amid miniature white-capped mountains In the middle of some nondescript lake. You barely noticed the glittering haze on the horizon That would soon draw you towards the brutal insignificance Of moulting into maturity, your delicate new wings Flapping into the abyss, The deep air buzzing with English voices And English poets. Granddad always said you were One lucky fella.

(2010)

[thewordsworthinme]

"Archives"

Imagine me and you chasing the crash of waves that stroke the coast, the evening still yawning into nothing, then us reaching up to taste the air’s exquisite juice. Imagine me and you lazing in sun-dried hammocks, hearts beating to the forest’s circadian rhythms, tapping each other’s bark for the sap of innocence within. Imagine me and you casting all care to the wind, streaking across untreated lawns overgrown with laughter, rolling in each other’s kisses into the night. Imagine me and you flooding our mouths with ice cream as the Paris sky explodes in a thousand Catherine wheels, the spark of life reflected in your autumn eyes.          Imagine me and you still frozen in our teens, chasing those silly moments over and over again – imagine us imagined forever.

(2010)

[thewordsworthinme]

"Close"

Close the door after you, and follow me in behind the curtain – reveal yourself within the intimacy of our inner temple to water. Let me feel your heat emanating close to mine, as it turns to droplets dripping through our pores; let the mist breathe life into glazed mirrors, clouding our doubts in a layer of desire. In that closeness of space, our bodies both silky and bare, the promise I make to you is undeniable. A well is filling in each of us; streams rinse away the storms of past trysts; a blessing is begun in secrecy. Don’t turn now – look closely, and believe.

(2009)

[thewordsworthinme]

"Nocturne"

Play the music of the universe for me: Track the sky with a flick of a violin bow; Let a constellation of piano keys glitter In my ears; move planets with the gravity Of your delicate, composed hands. And I wonder at the big blue lustre in your eyes That refuses to acknowledge the private Hell that cocoons your spirit in a hospital bed, Plunging all measure of your existence Back to earth. I want your hands to reach for the moon Again, the way they did that evening: work your magic On unsuspecting audiences, unleash The carefree lunatic that hides most days. Sign Your name forever in the stars of the universe; Play your music once more for me.

[thewordsworthinme]

"Natural Causes"

No black suits fill the worn stalls, just specks of dust thrown into illumination by the breaking sunlight. The choir is non-existent: the ashen chirrup of birds outside provides some tangible note of melancholy. The chaplain’s baritone voice fades into a vacuum, answered only by a coffin that screams its prayer of acknowledgement. A sole wreath of flowers provided by the council lies on sterile oak. The only tears streaming today are the patter of clouds, pure and gentle; they fall for a face that longs for a photo album. He was one of those blokes at the corner shop every Sunday, wearing his acrid burgundy jumper; he might smile his tarred teeth at you, and always had those things to hand: a lottery ticket, Marlboro reds and a can of Stella. They found him broken at the foot of the stairs like some shrivelled foetus, when the foetid smell began to infect the neighbours’ garden. It was a fall by any other name, on any other day. Natural causes, they said.

[thewordsworthinme]

"Two Lovers"

after Leonard Cohen

Two lovers went to sleep                             Two lovers went to sleep one dreamed of tigers                                   one dreamed of gramophones           baiting the night                                           ekeing out crackled voices with soft lowly growls                                  from long-scratched vinyl dreamed of the sky ablaze                            dreamed of rain with stars glowing                                         smashing through the eaves like candles                                                   of a house to an unseen god                                          whispering the absence dreamed of a rumbling forest                        of larks nesting with birds of paradise                                   in other corners of the world and hollering monkeys                                  dreamed of wells draining away and thundering waterfalls                             into the earth Two lovers went to sleep                             Two lovers went to sleep one dreamed of siphoning water                   one dreamed of furnaces from a thirsty lake                                        boiling with ice not steam and blessing it on naked skin                        dreamed of a crack creaking and rinsing a mouth                                      from one side of a mirror with a spring of tender kisses                       to the other dreamed of harvesting the gold                    dreamed of radios from the end of the rainbow                         riddled with interference and sending it in a sealed envelope              and dreamed of dreams regurgitated to the other end of the universe                   from other dreams waiting with joy                                            where the forest hasn’t rotted and dreamed of the artist                              and the lake hasn’t dried with his palette of fire                                   and the artist hasn’t torn his picture air and water                                                 and the husband wakes naked drawing the kaleidoscope                             at four-thirty in the morning of the earth                                                   when night still reigns.